For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens. Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.

It is true, of course, that there is only one God, and that he made the heavens and the Earth. And yet, at the time the above psalm was written, almost the entire population of the world was engaged in idolatry, of one sort or another, when they should have been fulfilling their duty in the worship of the one true God. If it be asked how that situation came about, the answer, naturally, is that it was a direct consequence of the fall. Nevertheless, out of this mass of unredeemed mankind, God chose for himself a peculiar people, as the King James Version of the Bible puts it.

Due to the general corruption of mankind, it is not to be doubted that those who know not God will, for their sin, be punished everlastingly. There is no point in fudging that fact, as some branches of Christianity are wont to do, and so, when the Lord graciously made himself known to the Jews, they became indeed a privileged people.

In retrospect it can be known that the vocation of this privileged people was to be the means by which God’s written word would be given to us, and, ultimately, by whom Christ would come into the world. Once that had been achieved, the written word could be the carrier by which God’s revelation was taken to all mankind, thereby bringing salvation to God’s elect.